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Wednesday, September 8, 2010

An Only Child

I almost became an only child today. And my dad almost became a single parent. It sounds a lot more dramatic than it was, or so I'm told.My mom and sisters could have gotten run over today had they been a few seconds earlier in arriving at a particular intersection on their way to school. A car failed to stop. They didn't have a stop sign, and would have gone right through.Maybe if I had been a few minutes earlier or later doing different parts of my getting ready this morning, they would have been. Maybe it would have been my fault, even though I'm technically not to blame for some random person's bad driving. Maybe one day, I'll be that person in the car that fails to stop. There's no knowing.Dad gets insurance through his job, but Mom has to pay for hers. And she gets a lot. Their financial planner, when they were discussing it years ago before she started working said, "Sure, you're not generating any income. But with you gone, Don would probably want to hire someone to clean the house. They'd go out to eat a lot more. You'd need babysitters. Just because you're not working doesn't mean you don't generate spending money." This is true.

I don't know how we would have managed it had they been hit. Even if some of them lived, there'd be hospital bills, and the general trauma of having family with serious injuries.

Dad and I act tough, but I think we're actually the most fragile of the five of us when it comes to stuff like this. A long time ago, Mom and the three of us went up to NY for a little while, but Dad had to work so he stayed home alone. That weekend, he literally did nothing except play Diablo 2 and eat pizza. Both of those things are great in moderation, but that was just for a weekend. Yeah, we have more relatives in town than we did then, and in the event of deaths, they'd definitely be over a lot more, but I don't know if he could hold it together. And I don't know how long it'd take him to recover. I mean, he'd be able to go to work and stuff. That I'm not worried about. But the rest of the time...I think I'd lose him to a computer game. Probably World of Warcraft, because we'd have the money for it again with three less people. He was totally absorbed by it even with all of us alive and well.

When I was in 4th grade (and I think I've mentioned this before), Mom got a strep-mixed-with-staff infection and had to go to the hospital. That weekend, I think the four of us lived for our two hour turns on WoW. We needed the escape from our anxiety. We were zombies. It was terrible.I think I would be better about it now. I'd spend a lot more time with friends out of school, though, just to distract me. I would no doubt also go back to WoW, although to a lesser extent. I mean, it's fun and it's there, so why not play?

I'd have to learn to cook. Which would suck, because every time I go near the kitchen I make a mess unless it's...a sandwich or something. My time would be gone, because I know I'd have to do most of the cleaning as well.

These thoughts terrify me, because it's not just a random possibility. This stuff is real. It happens. It could happen to me. It almost did. Just a few seconds. If we go with the parallel-worlds-every-possibility-is-real-theory, there are many versions of me to which it did. While I don't think I believe that theory, the thought is scary anyways.

I don't remember what I was going to blog about today. I'll see some of you tonight.